Tuesday, September 17, 2002

 

SC: 10,200 words

Didn't get any work done on our little vacation. Had a great time despite the cold we all caught from Xander and the non-stop gogogo daily. The guys were in their seminars from 8:30 AM to 10 PM with a lunch and long dinner break. We generally didn't see them until dinner. Us ladies (and Xander) spent our mornings in one ladies class and our afternoons sightseeing.

Breif recap: We saw 3 black bears total. The first two being already high up in the trees when we arrived on the scene. You could barely make out black patches of fur around the leaves. The third we saw with the guys on the last day of the trip. We hiked to Grotto Falls where you can walk behind the falls. On our way back my in-laws saw a tree moving and stopped to wonder what it was. It had obviously been something big by all the ruckus it was causing. James got some great video footage of the young bear climbing down out of the tree, playing and searching for food on the ground and then moving off. It hovered around the trail for a bit, letting many people get pictures. I was concerned the entire time about getting between the momma bear and the young one, but many of us concluded that he was probably just old enough to be on his own.

We also saw two young deer that wandered around the path on a hike in Cades Cove. They came up to about ten feet away. I got some fairly good shots of them too, although it was dark in the forest.

The other two exciting parts of the trip were my accident with the van and my mother in-laws fall. On Wednesday we had just gotten back from Cades Cove and I was so thankful to be getting back to pick up the guys. I had been nervous all week about driving in traffic and on the curvy mountain roads. I turned too soon (on the highway in Pigeon Forge you have to make u-turns to get anywhere on the other side of the street), so I had to make another u-turn to get back to the other side of the conference center where the guys were at. I didn't swing out wide enough for the other cars to come around me. A guy in a car came around me (to my side of the car), we sat waiting for traffic a bit longer. I didn't even look because I figured he had gone on already. I got a break in the traffic and made a sharp turn out to the inner lane, at least that's what I intended to do. All of a sudden the car starts shaking. The first thing that comes out of my mouth is, "Aw, man! I'm so stupid." I knew what had happened: the guy in the car was still there and I'd hit him. Well, really I scraped about 6 feet along the side of our van and only scraped the corner of his bumper. Luckily it was an older model car and a metal bumper. Not much damage on his part. I'm not worried about our van, we probably won't even fix it. It was the fact that it happened at all. So, my MIL got out the cell phone and called one of Pigeon Forge finest and after much debate the other man involved decided to file a report (since we had the same insurance companies). He talked like it wouldn't cost much to fix it, just sand it out.

So anyway, then on Thursday we went to the North Carolina part of the park to do some hiking. We stopped in Cherokee for gas and a bit of lunch before hiking. I slipped off the step as I walked out of the gas station when I paused to tell the attendant to have a nice day. Just slipped, no big deal. So then I was walking to the car and my MIL had Xander in her arms. There was a van parked between the building and our van. I went one way and my MIL went the other. I heard her cry out, or thought I did, when I turned back, she wasn't where I thought she'd be if she'd fallen. I heard a truck go by on the highway and somehow it made a similar sound that I'd heard just a moment before. I turned back toward our van thinking I was hearing things. When I got to the front of this other van, I realized that my MIL was not near our van, or anywhere to be seen. I came around the front of the other van and there she was laying on her back with Xander still clutched to her chest. I hurried over, set my Dasani and sandwich down and took Xander from her. He'd looked up at me and started crying. I think he was more scared than anything. The MIL told me later that she had been trying to hold him with her left hand and get the keys to the van from her purse with her right. She had stepped in a small hole in the concrete and her sandal heel stuck in it. She said she was falling straight forward and managed to catch herself with her right hand and shift her weight to the right, so Xander didn't hit the ground. She scraped her knees and cut her hand. The woman working at the gas station rushed out and helped her up. When she realized that her hand was cut, the attendant rushed in and came out with hydrogen piroxide, ointment and a bandaid. She probably didn't want to be sued, but she was being extra nice anyway.

So that was the exciting stuff on our trip. I was so glad to be home. On the trip back Friday, Xander's naps kept being interupted and he was so tired and cranky Friday night that he'd scream alot despite my efforts to try to coax him to sleep. Poor guy, it was a rough trip home for all of us.

Not sure when I'll get back to writing. Right now we are struggling just to get back to our routine of walking. We walked Sunday and Monday, but this morning we were just too tired. We took a friend to an interview for a job last night at 9:30 (she got the job and is working the night shift). She didn't finish with the orientation and the drug test and all that until 2 AM. The place is an hour and a half from here (they offer bus services from here) so we didn't get home until about 4 AM. We were way too tired to get up and go today.

James and I both stayed the same all week, weight-wise. I was so pleased that we were able to stick with this eating plan while we were gone and didn't gain weight on our semi-vacation! Who-hoo!

Dawn posted this at 11:34 AM.

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